


The Stuff of Legend part 1

by WordMusician



Series: The Stuff of Legend [1]
Category: Doctor Who (2005)
Genre: F/M, I totally love the whole of Doctor Who so don't judge because I focused only on post 2005, Maybe this is too long to read in one sitting sorry, My First Fanfic, Not so alternate AU, Pete's World, Where do you think the idea for Doctor Who came from in the first place
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-04-03
Updated: 2017-04-03
Packaged: 2018-10-14 11:24:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,783
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10535481
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WordMusician/pseuds/WordMusician
Summary: What if it was all real?  What if Pete’s World was actually this one?  What if Rose Tyler wrote down her adventures with the Doctor and people started reading them?  A different take on GiF.  Sorry this is a lengthy post but I just couldn't see where to break it up evenly.





	

**Author's Note:**

> This is my very first fan fic posting. Please be kind but honest in your comments. I've been a "guest" here for ages and ages but never stepped up and stepped out.

Rose leaned away from the computer and stretched. Her neck and back muscles protested after sitting for so long but she smiled the smile of accomplishment. She turned her head and gazed out at the night sky. Clear nights like this let her see the stars. They were her inspiration for writing. They sang to her of so many stories, of so many places. It had become her job, her mission, to capture those stories and bring them to earth. She needed to put down in black and white words all the wonderful colors of those adventures. She found she wrote best in the wee hours of the morning, when everything and everyone was quiet. In that quietness the stars could be heard.

The cursor on the computer screen patiently blinked at her. After a few minutes, she leaned forward and clicked save. She would let him see this before she published. He would point out some details and make a few minor suggestions for edit but in the end it would be her words, her work. Rose rubbed her forehead to massage away the dull headache of fatigue. Or they could have a major row like they’d had a week earlier…  
As the last week’s events rolled through her memory, Rose clicked off the desk lamp and shuffled quietly across the room. She couldn’t go to bed yet for she knew she’d only toss and turn and end up back out here anyway. Rose grabbed a pillow and hugged it as she curled into one corner of the couch.

****  
“That’s not what happened!” he shouted, storming into the kitchen. He shook the papers in her face before slapping them down hard on the table. “When did you decide to write fiction?”

  
“It’s all fiction to my readers,” she murmured unaffected by his flashing eyes and raised voice. She’d had hours to steel herself for his reaction.

  
“That’s not the point! You know it isn’t fiction. I know it isn’t fiction.” He pointed at the crumpled papers with a sneer, “But that… that isn’t. It’s just not what happened. Why would you write such drivel?” He ran a frustrated hand through his tousled hair. He had been supportive of Rose’s writing from the very beginning because it had seemed cathartic for her. Granted, he’d had a mild panic attack when he learned that she was blogging it, but the positive comments from her readers had seemed to help Rose, so for her sake he had tried to go along with it. Until now.

  
“It’s what I recall.” She tried not to sound defensive. The whole adventure had been particularly hard to write but she was proud that she had pushed through to finally finish it.

  
“Ha!” he barked out a harsh laugh. “Well, you recall it wrong.”

“No, I don’t. I was there!” Despite her best efforts, Rose felt herself being dragged into the fight.

  
“Oi! So was… he.” Once again Rose had succeeded in throwing the fact that he was not HIM in his face. That was not his fault! Would they never get past this, or was he always going to be the “consolation prize”? For a brief moment he considered slamming his fist into the nearest wall.

  
Rose saw the pain flit across his expressive face and felt a stab of familiar guilt. Why did she have to play that card? Why did she feel the need to poke at the one sore spot that never quite healed? Regret and remorse swelled in her compassionate heart. Oh, why did she even have to write that stupid story anyway? Hadn’t she wanted to forget it herself? Except she knew it was important. That adventure had shaped things to come and as much as she could wish it had never happened, she knew it was that adventure that had caused Rose Marion Tyler to do some growing up and forced her to look at things differently.  
“I’m sorry, but that’s truly how I remember it.” She spoke quietly and sadly, staring down at her interlocked hands. She concentrated on relaxing them.

  
It was silent in the kitchen as he took in the emotions behind her simple confession. His clever mind recalled verbatim the written words and he felt his stomach make a queasy flip. He had been so upset at the apparent injustice of the story – she had made him out to be a right royal ass – that he had completely missed the pain in the voice of the author. He reached down and gently cupped her chin in his hand, urging her to look up at him. Genuine concern had replaced anger in his face as he stared intently into her troubled and wary eyes. “Really Rose? Then I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry.” He never got tired of touching her, even when they rowed his skin craved contact with hers. It was as if she was his grounding wire, his anchor. In many ways she was that exactly.

  
Rose blinked, uncertain what he was apologizing for: his tirade or the adventure itself. “It’s okay,” she said quickly. “I don’t have to publish it.”

  
He shook his head releasing her chin to stuff hands into his jean pockets. “No, Rose you do,” he said seriously. “But before you do, would you listen to my version of that adventure? You can write what you like, but I need to you hear what I remember.” He must have seen agreement in her eyes because without another word he turned away and after refilling her mug and fixing himself one, ushered her into the living room.

  
Rose sat on the couch but instead of taking his accustomed place at her side, he opted to remain standing. For an awkward moment they sipped their tea stealing glances at each other. He tried to set aside his emotional response to her story and focus on what he knew to have transpired so he could report to her the facts. But other ideas and connected thoughts kept asserting themselves and overlaying the history. Suddenly he was found himself piecing together reasons for Rose’s mysterious behavior following that adventure. How she had seemed withdrawn and tentative where she had been openly engaged and confident before. Time lines were forming in his memory and he could see where things had diverged. His tea tasted bitter on his tongue and he swallowed a mouthful of regret. After a few moments he gathered his thoughts, formulated a plan and began to speak.  
“Reinette Poisson’s life is a fixed point in time. We had to make sure they didn’t succeed in changing her time line or the whole universe as we knew it would unravel. No telling what would happen, just that it would be a disaster. The TARDIS knew that too: that’s why she materialized there – always taking us where we needed to go, not necessarily where we thought we wanted to go.” He smiled nostalgically and was encouraged to see Rose nod her head ever so slightly. She was listening, even if she wouldn’t look straight at him.

“Of course, none of us knew any of that when we first arrived on the ship.” He shrugged and waved a hand dismissively. “She was just a little girl in a fireplace that just happened to be a time portal to prerevolutionary France. Very odd that. Odd things always get my attention and that was very odd indeed. Naturally we struck up a conversation. Actually she reminded me of another plucky blonde,” he chanced a wink at his audience, but her frown told him he had missed the mark. He should have remembered that Rose did not like to be compared to Reinette. “Erm, well. Curious me, I had to know why a derelict 53rd century ship had a portal to 17th century France. Finding how to operate the time portal the first time wasn’t exactly planned, even if I am that clever. It’s not like I meant to leave you and Mickey on the ship but you weren’t standing on the transfer platform when it happened.” He paused to see if she would concede that point, but Rose didn’t move. “After dealing with the proverbial boogie man under the girl’s bed, I rejoined you.” He snapped his fingers to illustrate his point how of quick and easy it had been, again trying to get her to acknowledge him, but Rose was unresponsive. Nervously he rubbed the back of his neck; tough crowd. “Of course I’d brought the clockwork droid with me and neutralized him with the fire extinguisher before studying him further. Then it was only a matter of understanding what they wanted with a little girl in France and puzzle out why they thought she wasn’t complete.”

For the sake of simplicity, he decided to speak in the first person even though technically he hadn’t even been there. Possessing the same memories as another man was definitely complicated. He paused to see if Rose was still with him and her posture worried him. Her face was carefully neutral but her body betrayed her inner angst. Her shoulders were hunched over as if to curl in on herself and her right foot was tapping out a nervous staccato. He tilted his own head lightly to stretch tightened neck muscles and felt a satisfying pop. The tension in the room was palpable and he hated it whenever they were at odds or arguing. Nevertheless, since he’d insisted on this retelling, he thought it best to press on.

  
“When the droid teleported before I could interrogate it, I had to go back in time to learn more about the little girl. I could have brought you with me, but I figured the little girl already had enough strangers coming and going in her bedroom. I didn’t want to traumatize her further so that she couldn’t tell me anything useful. And I didn’t want you to have a run in with the droids. If the one who attacked me was any indication, they were not friendly and I thought you were safer on the empty ship. I only meant to be gone a minute. Figured to just pop back over then pop back and we’d discover why the TARDIS wanted us there and what to do about it. I hoped you wouldn’t mind babysitting Mickey for just a tick.”

  
He tugged on his ear, a tell tale sign that he was reconsidering something. Using the word babysitting and Mickey in the same sentence might not have been his best choice. It was okay for Rose to tease and disparage her old friend, but she was fiercely protective of him if anyone else chanced to make a comment. When Rose still didn’t speak, he sighed softly and continued. “I didn’t know yet that time between the ship and France were travelling at different rates. When I arrived the second time the room had changed. The little girl’s toys were gone. I was met by a young woman who I learned was the little girl now grown. I admit that I was flattered that she remembered me and considered me a friend perhaps even a hero.” Rose rolled her eyes. He felt the blush creeping up his neck even before he said the next words. “I really didn’t expect her to kiss me, but she was very aggressive and very good at it.” Rose’s staccato tempo increased and he rushed into the next sentence. “It was only after that that I realized who she was – that Reinette was actually Reinette Poisson who would become Madame de Pompadour, celebrated mistress to the King and uncrowned queen of France. I am always thrilled to meet such important people from earth history, but it really was just a lark that we kissed.”

  
Rose set her mug down on the side table and hugged herself. She hadn’t known about the kiss. She had tortured herself with ideas that they’d kissed at some point, probably more than once, maybe done other things too. But guessing and knowing were two different things. Why was he telling her this? It didn’t make the story better, not from her point of view anyway. Her heart seemed to be breaking all over again. If he had a sore spot so did she, and right now she felt like he was kicking the hell out of it.

  
“So now I had a piece of the puzzle. The ship had a time window focused on a key historical figure. I didn’t know why yet, but at least I knew that. When I came back to the ship, I was all ready to share my news with you, but you’d gone off with Mickey and the fire extinguisher. Rule #1 Rose, remember? Don’t wander off. Not that I was very surprised by that – nobody follows rule #1. Rubbish rule I suppose. Should have just made it a polite suggestion for all anybody ever pays attention to it…” He mentally shook himself realizing he was rambling off course.

  
“I set out to find you and next thing I know, I am followed by a horse. A horse on a space ship!” he chuckled to himself. “Now I knew there were more time portals. I saw a few as I looked for you, and each one was spying on her at different ages in her life. Found one big enough for a horse and had a peek while I was there. It led me to the gardens outside the Palace of Versailles. Oh, you should have seen them, Rose. The French were famous for their gardens even before Madame de Pompadour’s landscape designs. Anyway, I saw Reinette talking to another woman. From their conversation I learned more time had passed and soon Reinette would be meeting the King for the first time. I still didn’t know what the droid had meant by incomplete, but it was exciting to watch history unfold. Better than that thing they call “reality TV”, eh?” Rose wasn’t looking at him at all now. The staccato foot had stopped and she had tucked it up underneath her. She was visibly pulling into a shell and he knew that this was not going well. It was time to change the focus of the story, to try and get her to see his point of view.

  
He felt no more comfortable then she, but he knew that this story was important for both of them and for their future. He hadn’t realized until he had read her version just how damaging that adventure had been for her. Sure he’d sensed a change in her right after that, but he’d chalked it up to a bit of nerves having to wait so long for his return. He knew it had rattled her; it had rattled him for that matter! After a while, things seemed to improve between them and he had allowed himself to forget about it. Running, running, he had always been running back then.

  
Never one to talk of truly personal matters, he struggled on how to do so now. “Of course there was Arthur the horse. I should have known then that this was more than complex,” he was muttering into his mug. “I am sorry about that remark about Mickey being your pet. That’s me: rude, not ginger. Still is me, actually,” he grimaced. “I knew you didn’t want Mickey to travel with us. I saw you say no to me when he asked and Sarah Jane encouraged it. I was the one who’d invited him. And my motives weren’t very nice. Actually they were very stupid.” Rose looked up at him questioningly, but he was staring at his cooling tea and missed her look. “I was having a problem and I thought Mickey would be the solution.” He shook his head and heaved a sigh, dismayed at his own stupidity. What a waste of time it had all been. He had been such a thick headed coward. “Reinette Poisson is a fixed point in time.”

  
“You said that already.” Rose wanted to hear more about his confessed problem and why asking Mickey to come along with them had been some sort of solution.

  
“I know, but it needs repeating because it’s the crux of the story. Time Lords get to swan off and see and do incredible things, but we also have a terrible responsibility. When much is given, much is required, I believe the saying goes. For some mysterious reason, the droids were trying to mess with Madame de Pompadour’s life and I absolutely had to protect that fixed point in time. The TARDIS knew that, that’s why she took us there. I was the last of the Time Lords; it was up to me. If I failed, everything and everyone,” he looked pointedly at her, “would be gone forever.”

  
Rose suppressed a shiver. Had it really been that serious? He hadn’t acted very serious back then, but has she had come to learn much later when the Doctor was joking around he was usually actually at his most serious. Could he have really been considering her in all of that? Jumped through that last time window to save her and Mickey instead of just Reinette? For the first time, Rose began to mull over that old adventure with a new attitude.

  
“It took a bit of time to figure out what the droids were actually up to. You and Mickey were your brilliant selves helping solve that bit: exploring, discovering, and getting captured. I wasn’t really drunk you know – that was an act to distract the droids and rescue you.” He was pacing now, getting into the action of the story. “A Time Lord can filter alcohol out of his blood stream with 97.68% accuracy. The banana daiquiri you could smell on my breath was purely for effect. They had seen me with Reinette so I had to make them think I was harmless.”

  
“They were going to carve us for spare parts!” Rose was reliving the panic of being restrained on the laboratory table. He had vanished and they had been captured. Mickey had been no help at all, giving voice to her inner worries. For the very first time in all her travelling, she had feared they wouldn’t defeat the monsters.

  
“No,” he declared forcefully stopping mid stride. “I would never let that happen. No matter what I was doing, I never forgot about you. I couldn’t. I can’t. But I realize now that you didn’t know that then; I’m sorry you were frightened.”

  
Rose shrugged. Fear was not a new emotion to her now and it certainly wasn’t the worst emotion she experienced that adventure.

  
“Rose, I am sorry,” he repeated.

  
“I know. Just keep going, yeah?” The sooner he said his piece the sooner they could begin to put this behind them.

  
He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment then nodded. “Once we knew what they had planned, it was a matter of stopping them. I thought you’d like Reinette. In my mind, you had so much in common: you were both brave and brilliant and beautiful. That’s why I had you go and speak with her and explain what we knew and what we’d planned. Have a bit of girl bonding, like with Sarah Jane? I thought you understood why she was important to history. I never thought…”his voice grew rough as he recalled her point of view in the story she’d written. “Rose, I never, ever, ever knew you thought yourself so much less than you are! I can be so thick sometimes!”

  
“Yes, you can,” Rose agreed, bitterness seeping into her words. She remembered what Reinette had said to her, that you couldn’t have the Doctor without the monsters. She remembered thinking at the time that for her, Reinette was one of the monsters. She also recalled that Reinette had been friendly towards her, had hinted that she saw how Rose felt about the Doctor. How had she known about that? And how could she have seduced him afterwards, if she knew? That betrayal had hurt almost as much as his.

  
Suddenly he was beside her on the couch and capturing her hands in his.

  
He remembered how he’d felt as he charged through mirror. Yes, it had been a thrill to essentially be someone’s knight in shining armor – who wouldn’t want to be that – but as the glass had shattered so had his hopes. He’d put on a brave face for Reinette and the frightened people, but inside he had been screaming in personal despair. “When I rode Arthur through that mirror… Rose, you must believe me… I wanted nothing more than to have you clinging on behind.” She snorted and tried to pull her hands away, but he tightened his grip. “No, listen to me. It’s true! I had to go and save her. I absolutely had to preserve the time line, but I would have loved to have taken you with me. I knew I was probably trapping myself and I couldn’t do that to you.” His eyes bored into hers willing her to grasp the implications, “I couldn’t take both you and Mickey.”

Rose stared at him and he could practically see the wheels turning as her brilliant mind began to pull things together. “Mickey would have been left behind on the ship alone,” she realized.

  
“Yes.”

  
“And he knew nothing. I at least could activate Protocol One and get the TARDIS to take us back home.” She wasn’t bragging, just stating the truth.

  
“Yes.”

  
“But you left us,” she protested weakly, beginning to see it from his point of view but still resisting the events that had broken her heart and shattered her self esteem. Again she tried to extricate her hands but he would have none of it.

  
“I know. I should have explained it all to you, but there just wasn’t time,” he laughed derisively. “A time lord with no time: now there’s some galactic-sized irony!”

  
“But you left us, left me, for her.”

  
“No. Yes, that’s how it looked but no that’s not what happened. I left to protect the time line. She was a fixed point in the time line that had to be preserved. I hoped I could figure a way back once things were sorted. If not, I was prepared to go the slow path until I could meet up with you again in a few hundred years.”

  
He had been ready to wait centuries for her? Rose chewed on her bottom lip. This was news to her. The Doctor, the man she knew who could never stay in one place too long, who could feel the earth as it spun in orbit around the sun, who always skipped Sundays because they were “boring”, that same man had been prepared to live out life day by day, watching people wither and die, just to preserve the time line? Just to get back to her? Maybe she had got it wrong. Maybe she’d been a fool to let Mickey’s hurtful words chip away at her hopes and dreams. Maybe her ex-boyfriend had been playing an angle himself in the vain hope that she would turn to him for comfort.

  
“I couldn’t bring myself to use Protocol One. All I could think about was what if you came back and we’d already left. You would have been trapped on that space ship and no one would have ever known.” A tear slid down her pale cheek as she relived those torturous 5 ½ hours.

  
He pulled her into his arms. “I’m so sorry, Rose. Truly I am. But you have no idea how important it was to me to know you had waited for me. You didn’t have to, I never asked you to, but you did it anyway. I loved you for that.”

Rose sniffled into his shoulder. “Sure had a funny way of showing it,” she complained.

  
He sighed. “I know.” While he shared all the Doctor’s memories and indeed felt as though he had lived the adventures himself, a part of him wondered if he – the he who he was now – would have done things somewhat differently. But the past was the past and without a TARDIS and a way across the void, he could never go back and test his theory. “Let me tell you some other things you didn’t know, couldn’t have known. To better understand what the droids were doing, I looked into Reinette’s mind. I needed to understand what they wanted. While I was looking for trace evidence of their probes, she looked into my mind. Very rude, if you ask me! What she said she saw was loneliness; last of the time lords; called me her lonely angel. She saw I was scared to have relationships, scared to come out from behind the walls I had built to survive. I think she also saw how I felt about you.”

  
Rose peeked at him: all she could see was his jaw line and bobbing adams apple. “I say that because after I had saved the timeline, I thought I was trapped there. Smashing through the mirror with Arthur had shorted out all the time portals at once. Stranded me, but it also stranded the clockwork droids. Once cut off from their ship, they just sort of wound down and stopped so everybody was safe. Once all the celebrating was over, naturally I felt a bit blue but I was resigned to my fate. The price for being a rescuing time lord, I suppose. Anyway, it was Reinette in the end that caused my rescue; she was the one who showed me the old fireplace – the one I had used the first two times I had travelled. Because she had moved it from her home to the palace it was offline when I broke the mirror. All I had to do was reconnect a wee bit of wiring and the portal was back in business and I had my escape. I could see in her face that she was sad for me to go, but I also saw that she knew why I had to get back.” His arms tightened around her.

  
Rose remembered the euphoria of his return, how he had swept her up in his arms and hugged her tight. How he had beamed with joy and told her with mock seriousness to ‘always wait 5 ½ hours’ for him. He had been all energy and excitement and then he had pushed her toward the TARDIS and ran off. “But you went back again…”

  
“She was such a wonderful person, Rose. Her mind was the cleverest in all of France. She wanted to learn. She wanted to see the stars and I thought we could give her a little trip and pop her back into her time line without a ripple.” He shrugged and sighed. “But time moved faster in France than on the ship; just those few moments I spoke with you made me too late for her. She died before I came back. I had told her I would only be a tick, not 5 whole years. I let her down.”

Rose felt a twinge of guilt for her years of jealousy. “I’m sorry,” she whispered. It had been agony to wait 5 ½ hours for him, what must it have been like to wait 5 years?

  
“Not your fault Rose. I was the one who made rash promises and foolish mistakes. I hurt everyone on that adventure: you, Mickey, Rennette, even the King.”

  
“The King? How did you hurt him? Did he catch you kissing?”

  
“What? No! Please, forget about the kiss – it meant nothing. No, when I went back the last time he was watching Reinette’s hearse leave for Paris. Reinette had written me a letter before she died and he gave it to me. He asked what she said, but I wouldn’t read it in front of him. It hurt him to be reminded that Reinette had had a special relationship with me.”

  
“What was in the letter?” she didn’t really want to know, but knew she would torture herself with her imagination.

  
“She told me she was dying. She knew that she would never be able to travel with us and she feared that I would not return in time to even say goodbye. She reminded me that I was her lonely angel and I think that she was trying to tell me to do something about that loneliness.”

  
For a few moments they sat together in silence, holding each other but holding their thoughts to themselves. Finally Rose gently pushed away so that she could see his face clearly.  
“Why did you ask Mickey to come along with us? How was he supposed to be the solution to your problem?” For all these years, Rose had feared that she was his problem. That she had developed feelings for him that he did not reciprocate and that had made him uncomfortable.

  
“Honestly? I was terrified.”

  
“You?” she scoffed. “Of what?”

  
“You.”

  
“Me?”

  
Unable to stay still, he left Rose on the couch and began to pace again. He ruffled his hair in a distracted manner, searching for the right way to explain it all. Even though he found it much easier to verbalize his feelings than his time lord counterpart, it was still a struggle when he was talking about their shared past. “Let me back up a bit. When we ran into Sarah Jane Smith, I was thrilled and horrified at the same time. I was thrilled to see her, to see her getting out there and investigating and having adventures. But at the same time I was horrified because when I looked into her face I saw everything I had been running from all these centuries. Sarah Jane had aged. I could see it on her face, in her eyes, in her body and it reminded me most forcefully that all humans are… well, human. You live such a very short time, you lot, and then you go and die and leave the universe behind…alone.” He was staring at the wall, not really seeing it, lost in his words.

  
Rose thought how he was also speaking of himself now, but chose not to remind him of his half human composition. With only one heart, he had only one life to live too; he would never be able to regenerate.  
“Sarah Jane used to travel with me and we were great friends. We had some of the best adventures. Then one day, I was summoned back to Gallifrey and humans weren’t allowed there back then. I had to drop her off back home and it wasn’t until we saw her again that I learned I’d botched that up: Aberdeen instead of Croydon, thank you very much!” He grimaced at the further evidence of his questionable TARDIS skills.

  
“Anyway, once I was on Gallifrey one thing led to another and I’m ashamed to say I never went back for her. At first I was just busy and then I was afraid that too much time had passed and she would be… well. I couldn’t do it. I was afraid. I’m a coward, you know. Then I regenerated and then I regenerated again…”

  
“What regeneration were you when Sarah Jane was with you?”

  
“Third and fourth,” he had the grace to blush.

  
“Blimey.” Rose knew him as his ninth and tenth regeneration.

  
“Yeah,” he blew out his cheeks and rolled his eyes. “I was ashamed and embarrassed that I had done that to her. Not only had I left her, but I “forgot” her.” He used his fingers to make quotation marks. “Here was wonderful Sarah Jane Smith and I never spoke of her to anyone. Not even to you. I just tucked her whole existence up into my memory and kept it to myself. And then she was suddenly there again, reminding me of what I prat I am, and you called me on it.”

  
“I did?”

  
“Remember outside the chip shop?” I was already a bit uncomfortable with myself and the tension I could sense between you and Sarah Jane wasn’t making it any easier. Then you just come right out and ask me if that’s what I did: took a string of people along as companions and when I got tired of them, just dropped them like yesterday’s news. You wanted to know if that’s what was going to happen with you.”

  
“And you said no.”

  
“That’s right. I hadn’t thought about it up until then. Well, when I say hadn’t, I should really say I hadn’t acknowledged that I’d thought about it. But standing there looking at you, I feared I’d never have that kind of strength. I’d let you stay as long as you wanted and I’d watch you wither and decay and be helpless to look away from you because I loved you.”

  
“You didn’t say you loved me.”

  
“I know. I almost did though and that’s what completely terrified me! I came so close to speaking the words and I panicked. You have no idea the power you had over me, even then.” He was moving again, swallowing the space of the room with his long loose strides. “Rose, I think I loved you from the moment I took your hand and said, ‘Run!’ I know I loved you when you bravely stood across the table from me in Downing Street and I realized you might die in the missile strike. That was me when I still had my daft old face and soldiering ways – you’d already slipped past all my defenses.” He smiled at her quickly, reliving the panic his emotions for her had caused him back then. “When I regenerated, you were both the last thing on my mind and the first thing on my mind. You were the sun to my orbit and that had never happened to me before: a time lord helpless in the gravitational pull of a human’s smile! What I felt for you was oh, so strong, and the longer we were together the stronger it was becoming. I was terribly afraid Rose of what I had become. I was afraid to break all the taboos of the time lords. I was afraid that if you knew me, the real me, you would run away in horror. And then I was afraid I would rip apart the universe in my pain of that rejection. I could not allow myself to love you. But since I was helpless not to love you, I was determined to keep it a terrible secret.” He was standing at the window with his back to her. Some things were still easier to admit when you didn’t have to look at the person.

  
Rose shook her head, all the pent up anguish and frustration coming forth, “But why? Why couldn’t you love me? What was so wrong with me, with us?”

  
He leaned his head against the cool glass, “Oh, Rose, can you not imagine the danger of loving someone so much that there was nothing you would not do for them when you have the power and ability to do practically anything? I took you back to see your father when all along I knew how dangerous that could be! I could deny you nothing, yet Time lords have terrible responsibilities. I just couldn’t turn my back on that no matter how I felt as an individual. Remember the time war? What I had to do to my own people? If you had been there, in that moment, I would not have been able to do it. I would have failed to save the universe because I would not have been able to kill you.” He turned around to look at her, willing her to understand the magnitude of their situation.

  
Rose played with the hem of her tee shirt as she listened carefully. She hadn’t considered this dimension of their relationship. To her it had always just been a matter of the heart, a mutual attraction between a boy and a girl. Sure, the boy had been an alien, but most of the time it had been easy to forget that, and as time passed that detail had been less and less important to her. She had never considered what it meant for him as an alien to be in a relationship with a human…

  
“When we first met I had thick walls of pain and anger and hate. They insulated me from the universe and shielded me from the horror of my actions. But you walked right through those walls as though they never existed. You showed me what it was like to live again. You taught me how to feel again and once I regenerated, I felt things even more. So much more that it was maddening. All those layers of clothing: a feeble buffer against my attraction. Once I accepted that I was in love, I was afraid to be in the TARDIS alone with you. I didn’t know if I could control myself around you anymore. I already knew I couldn’t stop holding your hand, hugging you… That’s why I first suggested we take Sarah Jane with us. I figured she’s make a first rate chaperone. Plus I felt guilty for abandoning her the first time around. When she said no I was panicking inside, so when Mickey spoke up and said he wanted to come, even though you clearly signaled your displeasure, I let him come. I believed I needed that third wheel. I also wanted to see if you were well and truly over your old boyfriend.”

  
“You were jealous? You had a pretty weird way of showing it – throwing him in my face and all!”

  
“Not my best idea, no, but desperation will lead to rash decisions, even for a time lord.”

  
Rose rolled her eyes. Part of her was pleased with all this confession of love, but another part of her was railing at the waste of time, the misunderstandings, and the heartbreak that had resulted from his choices. “So, you brought Mickey along to push me away, not because you didn’t want me, but because you did want me.”

  
“Precisely!”

  
“Stupid.”

“Oi! Time lords don’t fall in love with humans! It’s forbidden.”

  
“You were the last of the time lords! Who was going to be the cupid police?”

  
“Good point.” They stared at each other for a moment as new understanding bloomed between them.

  
“But even if I got my forever with you, you couldn’t have your forever with me,” she whispered. “I was going to wither and die and you were going to have to live on without me.” As she imagined the rolls reversed, Rose gained a greater appreciation for the Doctor’s dilemma. It was so unfair.

  
“Curse of the time lords.”

  
Slowly Rose stood and crossed over to John. She took his hand, the one that had once been the Doctor’s hand and gently traced the fine hairs over the back of it. “All this time I thought you didn’t love me,” she spoke to the hand, “that you couldn’t love me because I was just a stupid ape, a shop girl from the estates. I loved you so much and I tried so hard to be a worthy companion, I was prepared to stay with you in whatever capacity you’d let me… Yet all that time you loved me, and you were trapped and couldn’t show it, couldn’t live it…”

  
A single tear fell onto his hand and he bit his lip to keep from crying out. The heat of that precious splash of salt water seemed to sear his skin and burn right through to his soul. With his free hand he reached out and caressed her damp cheek. She looked up at him and saw the unshed tears in his eyes. He nodded silently, his heart breaking for the star crossed lovers. He had been created out of that love: the product of regeneration energy the Doctor had siphoned off into his amputated hand so he could stay with his beloved without changing. That energy then merged with an accidental genetic transfer from Donna Noble which had allowed his half-human meta-crisis life to begin. He had all of the Doctor’s memories, all of the Doctor’s thoughts, and all of the Doctor’s love for the woman before him. He was the Doctor and yet not the Doctor; he was his own man and enmeshed in a romantic triangle of galactic proportions.

  
In her battered heart, Rose made peace with the Doctor. She accepted the sad truth that they could never be together and that in the end, he had known best. She grieved the pain she knew their love had inadvertently caused him and forgave him for saving himself from her. With a watery smile she let go his hand and reached out for John.

  
Their kiss was salty with tears and healing with gentle love. It took only a moment for him to wrap his arms around her and pull her in close to his heart, to where they could share their forever.

****  
Rose clicked through the posted comments on her blog site. “The Girl in the Fireplace” had generated the most comments since she had begun posting her stories online. She had gathered some more followers too. She was really glad that she had taken the time to rewrite the story before posting it. As it was, some of the readers’ comments had been pretty hard on the Doctor. Rose shivered to think what kind of vitriol she might have stirred up with her original version. Her readers were heartwarmingly loyal. She was amazed at some of the details they remembered from story to story. Some of them were using words like “cannon” as they theorized how it all fit together and predicted what might happen next. Rose had even seen some links to something called “fan fiction”! She hadn’t read any of those because she wasn’t sure she wanted to know what fantasies people might be writing about her true life stories.

  
When she had first started writing down her adventures with the Doctor, it had been for her own sanity. They were so far and away removed from life as she now knew it, that it had been important to capture them and put them on paper. Her first story had been posted by complete accident. She’d had to create a blog page for a computer course assignment. She’d uploaded the wrong file, and voila, there was her first adventure in time and space out in cyberspace for anyone to read. Her prof had given her a B- for the assignment and suggested she think of switching majors to creative writing as she worked toward her uni degree. That had been almost two years ago. Another year of credits and she would have something to frame on her wall. It was an achievement she largely accredited to the Doctor and to John. They had always believed in her even when she didn’t believe in herself…

  
Rose’s cell phone vibrated. “Mum?”

  
“Sweetheart? A letter came here for you today, must not have your new address, though I don’t know why, not the way the world knows everything about everybody anymore. Big brother and all…”

  
“What are you talking about, mum?”

  
“You got mail, sweetheart. A letter came in the mail here addressed to you. It’s not junk either. I think you’ve won a contest!”

  
“What? What contest, I’ve never entered a contest.”

  
“Return address says it’s from the BBC; very posh stationery too. Are you sure you didn’t enter a contest, Rose?”

“Quite sure. Go ahead and open it for me.”

  
“Yeah? Good, because I’m dying of curiosity.”

  
“I bet you are,” mumbled Rose. There was the sound of paper tearing and then rustling.

  
“Oh my goodness!”

  
“What? What’s it say mum?”

  
“Dear Ms. Rose Tyler. It has come to our attention that you have created a successful short story science fiction series and have been garnering a large online readership through your blog. We are always looking for fresh and exciting ideas that capture the imagination of our nation and your main character, the Doctor, may be just what we are looking for. I would like to set up an appointment with you to discuss the possibility of adapting your stories for television. Please contact me at your earliest convenience so that we can discuss this further in person. Yours truly, Russell T. Davis, BBC Executive Producer, email, phone number, address, blah, blah blah. Rose! You’re going to be on the telly!”

  
Rose was flabbergasted.

  
“Rose? Rose, you still there?”

  
“Yeah, I’m here. Look, Mum, I gotta go. Thanks for reading the letter to me. I’ll swing by and pick it up tonight, okay? Gotta go. Luv ya.”

  
Rose stared at the computer screen. The BBC had noticed her blog. That was like winning the lottery, wasn’t it? Honestly, what were the odds of that happening? Even for a semi-famous Vitex heiress.

  
This Mr. Davis wanted to talk with her about turning the Doctor into a television character. A TV special or maybe even a series! Was that a good thing? Yes, she thought, yes it was. The world needed the hope the Doctor could bring. They needed to learn the lessons she had learned: how it was important to take a stand, to say no to injustice, to keep going and do what was right. Nobody would ever need to know that she was baring her soul in these stories. They were too fantastical to be anything but fiction. Rose chuckled to herself. Maybe the Doctor lived and breathed in another universe, but that didn’t mean that he couldn’t do some good in this one too, even if it was by proxy.

  
The more Rose thought about it, the more excited she got. She wondered how much creative control she could keep – better talk to Pete about a lawyer before she replied to the letter. Could she have a hand in casting the actors? What about the sets? Could she manage to see the TARDIS recreated without having a bit of a melt down? How many stories would they want? With John’s help she could write other stories, ones outside of her own experience, ones from other regenerations. Over 900 years of adventures to choose from…

  
For the first time in such a long, long time a manic grin spread across Rose Tyler’s face. Oh, John was so going to kill her.


End file.
